Joker and the Apocalypse
by Godtrick
Summary: Joker keeps dreaming of an apocalyptic world in which he and Bats are the only people who continue to live.
1. A Laugh Worth Having

The world had ended. It was official. The Joker looked thoughtful and curious as he loped through the empty streets of Gotham. The sky was a blood red, everything was blackened and charred. The green haired man slowed as he came across a car, burnt to a crispy black, complete with paint crackled and flaking off. Everything seemed to be coated in a black soot-like powder, rendering the fractured windows unable to be seen through.

The Joker looked around surreptitiously although not a soul was around to bear witness to his deviance. He pulled his arm back punched through the glass. The sound shattered the silence and he spun around, eyes darting here and there as if the sudden noise would draw the world out from where it had crawled into. Slightly disappointed, he turned back to the car, only to freeze as he took notice of what was inside.

"Heh..." Head cocked to the side, he considered the sight. Two decomposing bodies, melted into their seats. They seemed to have been holding hands. The bloated fingers intertwined, adhering together in whatever incendiary demise that had ended them. Together...forever.

It made him smile. His lips stretching tight across his face until the laughter broke its way through. He doubled over with the effort. Somehow he ended up on all fours, heavy bouts of laughter making his entire frame shake. Bits of the black soot and what looked like flakes of ash rose from the ground where his balled fists smacked against what used to be the street.

Eventually his laughs died out. The Joker rolled onto his back in a puff of ash and soot. He stared up, almost bored, at the burgundy sky. Not even phased by the drastic change in color.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, the Batman was hovering over him, face merely inches from his own. The blue eyes that usually fixed him with heated glare were bloodshot and distant. Deranged or rabid or both. The Bats smelled like blood and death. It was in his breath, Joker noticed when Batman opened his mouth to speak.

"Joker." His tone dripped with venom. Kind of like the way a trickle of reddish pink saliva dribbled from between Batman's lips.

The Joker woke with a start, back in his cell at Arkham. He hopped up from the more comfortable part of the cement floor where he liked to sleep and stepped toward his cell bars. Pressing his face against the cold metal strips, he looked down the hall to see the nurses at their stations. He could see activity in the shadows of the other cells.

With an unhappy sigh he realized the world was, as it always is. Alive. As the Joker slumped back to his corner he could only think of one thing:

_Was Bats _drinking _blood? Or was he actually _eating _people?_


	2. To Bat or Not to Bat?

The sky was red. Blood red. Not the bright red of a fresh cut, no. It was a dark dirty red. Like a stain that's left on your shirt from a nasty gash from a nasty brawl with a nasty _Bat. _Joker blew a raspberry at no one or nothing in particular and lobbed a skull off of the rooftop. It soared in a high arc before crashing into the building across the street and tumbling down to the ground in a shower of broken pieces.

The Joker was high up on one of the tallest buildings in Gotham, the WayneTech building. He'd never liked this building much, back when everyone was alive and there wasn't people's shadows burnt into the walls. Or shoes melted to the ground with the leg bones still sticking out of them.

"Heh." Joker chuckled as he grabbed up another skull. He held it up and looked into the dark pits of it's eyes. The bone was smaller than most of the other ones, slimmer. A little girl, maybe. This joke wasn't all that funny. He tossed the skull over his shoulder. It took him a few moments to realize- no crash landing. No landing at all, no noise.

The Joker revolved slowly. There he was. Batman. In his hands was the small skull. His dark blue eyes were sad. Although he was dirty and unkempt, Joker was pleased to see that at least _this _Bat wasn't a blood drinking madman.

"Found your mind then, eh, Bats? Do tell me where it was hiding…you see, I've been meaning to look around for my _own_ for quite some time now." Joker cackled before turning back to his pile of skulls.

"What are you doing?" Batman's voice was quiet and strained.

"Trying to pass the time," Joker replied easily as he stuck his fingers into the eyes of another skull and rolled it off the roof the way you would a bowling ball. "What's it look like? Hmm?"

"Do you even realize that we are the only two people left alive?"

"Aww, how romantic." Joker grinned as he turned towards Batman. "If you wanted some alone time, you should have just said so. Really Bats, _this_?" He motioned to the crumpled up city around them, "Even for _me, _this is a bit much."

Batman jumped forward and used the momentum to land a rather forceful punch into the Jokers face. The Joker laughed as he stumbled back and fell to the ground. He clutched his face and when he saw blood, he laughed so hard he felt tears well in his eyes- or maybe that was from the pain- either way, after a few moments he stood with a broad, bloody smile stretched across his face.

He was alone on the rooftop, he had stood just in time to see Batman fly away and out of sight behind one of the tall buildings.


End file.
